Teaching Learning-to-Learn Skills

Teachers can accelerate their students' learning by explicitly teaching them learning-to-learn skills, said Bobb Darnell, director of staff support services for District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill. "We typically call these study skills," he said, "but actually they're learning skills."

According to Darnell, research and experience have shown that high-performing students tend to

Establish goals.

Determine essential information.

Find patterns and "chunk" information.

Plan and manage time (prioritize).

Seek help when necessary.

High-performing students also use efficient memory strategies, Darnell said, such as "distributed practice." For example, when memorizing words for a spelling test, a good student won't attempt to learn all 20 words in one night. Instead, she will memorize six words the first night, another six words the next night, another six words the following night, and then memorize the last two words (and review the most difficult ones) the night before the test.

When teachers teach all students to use these kinds of strategies, Darnell said, they see improvement in student performance within just a week or two. These strategies can be taught as early as 2nd grade, he added.

Darnell emphasized that learning-to-learn skills should be taught concurrently with content, not as an add-on. "Research shows that people don't pick up on these skills unless they're taught in the context of content," he said. For example, teachers can teach the skill of comparing as students learn about photosynthesis, he suggested, or they can help students master note taking as they learn about transition statements.

Skills Are Lacking

Too often, students lack these learning-to-learn skills, Darnell said. When teachers discover that students lack strategies for academic learning, they tend to blame the students—"You should know this already"—or lower their expectations, he said. For example, some teachers accommodate their students' inability to grasp textbook readings by giving them handouts and study guides, rather than teaching students how to extract information from a textbook chapter.

Although some teachers may think it takes too much time away from the regular curriculum to teach these strategies, they will save time in the long run if they do so, Darnell contended. "You may spend more time up front, but you will accelerate the learning once students get the strategies," he said—whereas remediating eats up far more time.

People don't realize the impact that teaching students these strategies can have, Darnell asserted. "A child who studies yet fails thinks: ‘I'm dumb, the teacher is dumb, this task is dumb,'" he said. These students come to believe that their failure is unchangeable and see themselves as "helpless victims." They are reluctant to take risks in the classroom.

However, if these students are taught learning-to-learn skills, they develop "a sense of self-efficacy," Darnell said. By using these strategies, students gain a deeper understanding of content and are "more empowered to take risks in learning," he said. "They get hooked on improvement."